“I like how this sounds. I like the pain.”
Soni of Hootie and The Blowfish
Cris Cohen: (In the book) you talk about – if you go through the songs you wrote post Cracked Rear View – they're this window on a very damaged soul at the time. “Only Lonely” (from the album Musical Chairs). “Tootie” from Fairweather Johnson. Were you aware of what these songs were revealing about you at the time?
Jim "Soni" Sonefeld of Hootie and The Blowfish: No, songwriting is pretty spontaneous. You're feeling something and you're getting it out on paper or in melody. And I typically don't question the root or the origins of the feeling. I'm trying to come up with some rhymes and something that's clear, and maybe catchy.
I've never questioned a pattern, like the pattern I discovered in hindsight about (post) Cracked Rear View songwriting. I never bothered looking back until I wanted to communicate something to my audience, try and help them to understand a mind that's looking for answers and relief from the pain of life. That's what I was looking for. And I used alcohol.
But as I started looking back, writing the book, I saw… why was loneliness and pain and carnage such a big theme for me?
Not even my own, but I even co-opted other people's stories. I liked writing about the sorrow and the pain. It was powerful to me. And so, while I was writing those songs in the present, it seemed I got that power. “I like how this sounds. I like the pain.”
I didn't know it was something more morose over time, that I wasn't writing any happy songs. All of my songs were either my own painful experiences or someone else's that I was borrowing for a song.
“My heart still beats for you.” “Only lonely on the inside.”
Keep the sharp objects away from this guy. He seems to be on the edge of something dark.
But it's funny, as songwriters in a band, everyone eventually gets in a lane. And with Darius and Mark and Dean and I, we all had this lane that had developed over time. Darius brought in certain styles of songs. Mark brought in certain styles. Dean too. And mine was the mid-tempo-to-slow, sad ballad. [laughs]